


Consequences of Chemistry

by Calico



Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Multiple Partners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-02
Updated: 2010-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-09 21:28:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calico/pseuds/Calico
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's unwise to underestimate the combined effects of a powerful aphrodisiac and Captain Jack Harkness.</p><p>Started for the Kink Bingo square: <i>orgy</i>. Became a little more complicated than that. Pairings: a blurring of canon relationships, plus some extra M/M, F/F, M/F/M, F/F/M, and M/M/M. Set early Season Two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consequences of Chemistry

"Pool," Jack said, handing Owen a glossy card with an address on it. "Here, tonight. Tosh's idea."

Owen frowned. He'd reckoned Tosh had been asking him out, the pool thing, but maybe it really had been about team morale. He felt slightly put out at the thought. "Alright," he said.

"You bring the booze," Jack said, patting him imperiously on the shoulder.

Owen raised his eyebrows, then made a show of reading the card again. "This? Is a bar. The one thing they already have is booze."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but you've been just dying to try out that purple stuff," he said, and gave Owen a knowing smile. "I found your distillery; nice kit, by the way. But you know the girls will only drink spritzers, and Gwen wants to bring _Rhys_, for chrissakes. We'll all enjoy it more if you sort us out with a little pre-game mixer."

"Gwen is bringing Rhys?"

"Yeah," Jack sighed.

"Huh." Owen thought about it. "Fair enough," he said.

"I couldn't exactly stop her," Jack said, scowling at Owen's mouth. It was a habit he had, kind of disconcerting. Made Owen lose his train of thought. Where was he?

"I meant, fair enough, I'll bring the booze," Owen said, and Jack glanced up guiltily, then produced a bright smile and clapped him on the shoulder again.

"Good man."

***

The room seemed to be trying for shabby opulence, with deep red crackle-glazed walls, stained black woodwork, and a general overindulgence of dark lacquer and tarnished brass. It couldn't be further from the pleasant marriage of chrome, glass and cheap vodka that Owen generally looked for in a drinking establishment. Faintly, coming up through the dark polished floorboards, an irregular thump of drum and bass could be heard.

"You just don't appreciate my genius," Owen told Gwen, when he leant against the threadbare pool table and pulled out his bottle of homebrew, and she made a face like he'd offered her a mouldy sandwich.

To be fair to her, it did look slightly dubious. Or to be more precise, slightly... purple. But it was delicious, and potent, so Gwen really needed to give it a chance. It had a slight vapour to it, which smelled like glace cherries tasted. Owen wasn't quite sure if he'd done that through his skill with the distillery, or if it was intrinsic to the nature of the plant, with its orange grapes and many-lobed leaves shot through with bright blue veins. He was quite pleased with it, though. Tasted much better than the pale green coffee substitute he'd synthesised off those alien strawberry plants, which had a kick like amphetamines and didn't taste much better (he'd run an extensive bunch of tests before he'd decided it was fit for smart person consumption at all, obviously, first on rats and then on an unsuspecting Ianto).

"Look," he said firmly, into the sceptical silence, broken only by the rhythmic reverberation of cheap bass. "It's nice."

He took a demonstrative swig, careful not to swallow _too_ large a gulp - it went down like fruit punch but had the strength of whisky, not to mention a few pleasing side notes. Low-grade euphoria, a tendency to giggle, that sort of thing. Embarrassing if you're the only one drinking.

He swirled it around his mouth with gusto, then smacked his lips. "See? Tastes like chocolate."

"Looks like battery acid," Gwen retorted, and exchanged a knowing glance with Rhys. "Or maybe... meths?" she mused, meanly in Owen's opinion. Tosh was looking doubtful too, while Rhys was regarding the bottle like it might contain nitro-glycerine.

"You're missing out," Owen told Gwen, and waved the bottle in their general direction. "All of you."

Tosh winced apologetically. "Gwen's right, though. It doesn't look very... safe. Er, sorry," she added, when Owen gave her a hurt look.

"It's no more dangerous than cheap white wine," Owen said, "and considerably nicer." He realised he was being embarrassingly earnest, so over-did it, pouting. "I've run microarrays and everything."

Gwen laughed, and her voice turned teasing. "I don't know, Owen, cheap white wine can be _pretty_ dangerous..."

Owen gave up the pout in favour of a glare. "Not when it's one bottle between six! Or even one bottle between one," he added belligerently, realising from their faces that it was a losing battle, taking another swig. It really was good. Why wouldn't they trust him?

Gwen smirked. "Yeah, well, I'd still rather wait for Jack to get back - I'd prefer to stick to certified and legal tonight if it's all the same to you."

Jack and Ianto were currently searching out the large crowded bar downstairs, fetching pints and change for the pool table and, as predicted, spritzers. _Stupid Jack_, Owen thought, uncharitably. It was Jack's fault that they were up here, away from the music and cheerful dancing beautiful people and purveyors of non-alien alcohol. For reasons known only to himself, Jack had hired out this poky private room _above_ the perfectly nice French cocktail place, meaning they had to go down two flights of narrow creaky stairs to get their drinks or hear the music or, say, get a glimpse of people they didn't sit next to all day. Or Rhys.

"He'd better hurry up or I might expire from all the excitement," Owen said dourly, although he was tasting cherries on every breath and had a warm floating feeling starting up at the back of his head.

They all looked around.

Tosh had put her head on one side.

Rhys was looking at his shoes.

"Mm," Gwen said dryly, one hand on her hip. "Dying of excitement - it's a risk, all right."

Four stories up, overlooking backlit Cardiff rooftops and chimney stacks as the sun rapidly sank, it was a room clearly designed to be filled with fashionable young things, perhaps dancing, smiling, enjoying the view. An ornate mirror hung on one wall, and a complicated set of light fittings and speakers clustered in one corner; Owen suspected the space got hired out for seriously expensive cocktail parties when Jack wasn't around to populate it with socially awkward people who looked like they'd never danced in their lives.

No, no dancing here. Standing, yes, or rocking back on heels, or loitering around the pool table like kids at a grown-up's party. There wasn't really anywhere to sit down, though - a set of cushioned stools clustered around a fireplace full of leaf-skeletons and fairy lights, but they were low enough that Owen's back twinged at the very thought.

He cleared his throat, took another salutary swig from the bottle, then offered it around again, just in case. "Any takers?"

"No," Gwen said firmly, with a curl of her lip that could be amusement or disdain.

Tosh just shook her head apologetically, then rushed on, "I'm sure Jack will be back any minute."

The pool table was off to one side of the room, just far enough away from the artfully-distressed window frame to allow vigorous pool-playing by someone of about Tosh's size. Owen made a mental note not to get too carried away; lacerations were lacerations, however antique the glass shards were that did it.

"I'm sure he will," Gwen nodded, and made an obvious attempt to brighten up. "Well, this is nice, isn't it! This place." She looked at Rhys. "It's very, you know." She made a face, then an indeterminate hand gesture. "You know."

"Poncy," Rhys suggested, and Owen felt his mouth tug towards a smirk.

"It's very _Jack_, I was going to say," Gwen said, and Tosh laughed behind her hand, and Owen thought, there we go, we're all loosening up. Who needs alien booze? Well, apart from him, obviously.

He blinked and noticed yet another string of fairy lights, winding above the mirror, dimly lit now the sun was on its way down. They were all... sparkly. The shadows seemed to smoulder by contrast, cosy and warm.

At least Tosh had made an effort, had got changed since work. Under her standard leather jacket was dark green top made of something shiny, above a narrow, pale green skirt that stopped above just the knee. She looked like a leaf, or maybe a pretty jade ornament - albeit one topped with black leather. Owen was actively making an effort not to look to frequently at her bare legs.

Gwen and Rhys were both just in jeans - Gwen was wearing a stretchy black top that made Owen's fingers tingle with wanting to peel it off, while Rhys had a blue t-shirt over some long-sleeved grey thing. He looked broad, Owen thought distractedly, but not unapproachable. Or maybe that was the homebrew talking as well.

Owen whisked his attention back to the bottle in his hand. The warm floating feeling was getting stronger, tweaking at his lips, making him want to smile.

"Looks like it's just you and me then," he told the bottle earnestly, and took another fragrant sip. After a moment of savouring it, he peeked at the others to check they were watching and then sighed extravagantly: "Suit yourselves."

"Oh no you don't," came Jack's voice, as he burst back in through the carved door with a pint in each hand, Ianto in tow carrying the rest of the drinks on a tray. Jack had just possibly, Owen thought, sampled the range of the bar already.

"Everyone," Jack emphasised cheerfully, "must give it a go! Try new things! Company policy: one shot of Owen's delicious concoction to get the party started."

Gwen gave him a disbelieving look. "Company policy since when?"

"Since now," Jack declared, and grinned at her rakishly, swapping Owen a pint for the purple bottle. The room seemed smaller with him here, and somehow more saturated with colour. "Since I decreed that it is time we started loosening up and having _fun_ as well as angst and trauma."

He took a deep swig and made an enthusiastically approving noise, then continued, "Tonight marks a new beginning for Torchwood, a fresh start. We're going to be more _inclusive_," he said, dipping Rhys a shallow bow, "and we're going to do fun things like play pool and drink fruity drinks with tiny umbrellas, and above all--"

"Oh, shut up and give that here," Ianto interrupted, yanking the bottle out of Jack's hand and knocking back a gulp.

Owen watched closely. This might be make or break time. If Ianto didn't like it...

Ianto swallowed, pressed his lips together, and gave the bottle an impressed look. "Not bad, actually."

Owen felt a rush of happiness entirely disproportionate to the compliment, and knew the purple stuff was starting to work on his neural reward pathways. "Glad you approve," he said, renewing his efforts not to smile.

Ianto wiped his mouth carefully with his thumb, then sucked it, and Owen looked quickly away. Ianto hadn't bothered changing for tonight either, was wearing the same dark suit from earlier, but he'd lost the jacket and tie, and unbuttoned his waistcoat, and rolled up his sleeves. The effect was... distracting. Jack wasn't the only one who kept sneaking glances, put it that way.

Ianto passed the bottle to Tosh, who glanced uneasily at Jack, then Ianto, then finally winced at Owen. "I'm not sure," she said.

Owen tried to give her his most doctor-like look and voice. "It's perfectly safe," he assured her. "I tested it extensively. It's sort of like whisky."

She held the bottle even more gingerly, and said apologetically, "I don't much like whisky."

"It is _better_ than whisky," Jack declared, popping up from behind the pool table and beginning to rack up the balls. "And you know that's some compliment, coming from me."

"Harkness in liking alcohol shocker," Ianto murmured. "I'll alert the press."

"It tastes like chocolate," Owen said, in case she hadn't heard that earlier. That it tasted like chocolate was pretty much the ace in his hand.

Tosh glanced at Ianto, who obligingly didn't appear to be suffering any ill effects. "Well," she said, clearly wavering, "if you're sure it's safe..."

"It is," Owen said firmly. He suddenly really, really wanted her to try it. More than any of them, Tosh needed to loosen up and have fun once in a while. He also wanted her to approve of his distillation skills. It was an art! And as a fellow scientist...

_Oh, crap_, he thought. He was drunk.

Tosh clearly came to a decision. "Okay," she said, and gave him a tentative smile, "I suppose... bottoms up?"

"Bottoms up!" Jack toasted gleefully, drinking half his pint and then lifting it in the air. Behind him, Ianto paused in chalking a pool cue to cover his eyes as if in despair.

Owen looked quickly back to Tosh, watching her drink: her eyes closed, then opened in pleased surprise. "Oh," she said, lips glistening, "that's... delicious!"

"Oh go on then," Gwen said impatiently, and took the bottle. "You're all mad, but we may as well go down with you. Rhys," she said, hefting the bottle like a _maitre d'_ and indicating Owen's handwritten label with a dramatic splay of her fingers. "Here's to your first experience of one of Owen's homebrew alien wines."

She drank as if she were doing a shot of tequila, grimacing pre-emptively, then made a face even more comically impressed than Ianto had done. "That's not bad _at all_," she said, and took another quick swig before pressing the bottle into Rhys's hands. "Chocolaty. Owen, I'm impressed."

"Me too," Tosh said, with a shy smile.

Owen preened, pretending to buff his fingernails against his chest.

"Me three," Rhys said.

"And there's still lots left," Jack called, eyeing the bottle speculatively. "Now! Who wants to let me thrash them at pool?"

"I do," Tosh said immediately, her smile going sly. Owen gave her an approving look that somehow travelled down her body without meaning to.

"We'll play doubles," Gwen said, looking at Rhys for conformation. Rhys shrugged and grabbed a pool cue, then jumped as Ianto swooped in behind him to give Gwen _his_ pool cue and smoothly hand Rhys the chalk.

"Er," Rhys said, accepting the chalk and almost dropping it. "Did you want to play?"

He looked unsettled. Owen couldn't blame him, with Ianto in his personal space like that.

"Not at all," Ianto told Rhys, his voice mild and managing to convey absolutely no information, in that way he often did.

"We'll do a tournament," Jack said airily. "Everyone will get to play with everyone else. As soon as we're done, you two can play with each other," he added, nodding at Owen, then Ianto, and then he flashed his eyebrows at Ianto and added, "Whoops, did I say that out loud?"

Ianto gave Owen an appraising look, and Owen heard himself say quickly, "Hold on a minute, Jack, how have you _already_ managed to monopolise the girls?"

Jack gave him a knowing grin, but was distracted from answering by the click of Gwen's cue, sending a clatter of balls scudding across the green felt.

"That reminds me, Jack," Gwen said, frowning after them and then smiling as a red dropped into a pocket, "why _are_ we hanging out in an attic on our own?"

Jack pointed at the window like it was obvious. "Have you seen the view?"

"Yeah," Gwen hazarded, stalking around the table and then tapping in another red with a satisfying nudge, and Owen had to stop looking at her breasts when she bent over, God, stop it, "the view, very nice, but on our _own_? No music, no crowds, no buzz...?"

"Oh, that," Jack said blithely. "It's because this is better! We can talk about work without worrying about anyone overhearing! We don't have to pretend to be normal people relaxing."

Gwen snorted, lining up to take a more difficult shot. "I'd like to be a normal person relaxing."

"I _am_ a normal person relaxing," Rhys said, then looked worried. "Aren't I?"

Owen caught Jack and Rhys both looking at the small of Gwen's back as she leant over the pool table, the stretchy black fabric of her top riding up. He glanced at Ianto, who was watching Jack, and then at Tosh, who looked quickly away from watching _him_\--

Abruptly Owen wanted to get out of here. He took a gulp from his pint, then swallowed hard when Ianto leaned close to his shoulder.

"While the prospect of a one-on-one with you is obviously appealing," Ianto said quietly, and then smiled innocently when Owen gave him a dark look, "if you'll excuse me, I think I need to get some bar snacks. They had vintage penny mix behind the bar," he added, brightly. "Jars and jars of it, all multi-coloured. Like a wonderful, alcoholic-friendly sweet shop."

"Bar snacks," Owen said distractedly, nodding. "Er, great idea, soak up some of the alcohol. Not that that's physiologically accurate. But anyway - I'll come with you."

"I can probably manage," Ianto said, his lips curving, and Owen stopped nodding abruptly. He had to stop staring at Ianto's _mouth_.

"I meant - I'm going for a piss, where's the gents' again?"

He followed Ianto downstairs, holding the handrail and trying not to trip on the curving steps or check out Ianto's arse too obviously either. He was definitely drunk.

Ianto had always been easy on the eye, though. The suits with their buttoned-up collars, and the starched shirts that made Owen want to see them crumpled on his bedroom floor, and the competence - Owen liked competent people, it was what drew him to Tosh. And the rest of them, to some extent. Even Gwen.

Gah, he was not drunk enough to think about Gwen. Rhys, God! She'd brought him here! Owen had had to look him in the eye and smile as if he'd never seen his fiancée naked, never fucked her for hours in full knowledge of what he was doing.

"Men's is through there," Ianto said, indicating with two fingers, and Owen swallowed and nodded, and went where he'd pointed, while Ianto headed off to the bar.

He needed some space, badly. He went for a piss, then headed downstairs instead of up, descending into the bustling anonymity of the ground floor. He paced through the cheerful Saturday night crowds, his shoulders slowly coming down from around his ears, enjoying the off-key music and the elbows jostling as he passed, the scratch of sequins on his arms; particularly enjoying the way he couldn't hear a word anyone was saying.

This was why he didn't like socialising with work. Too messy. They might get on if they cut through the crap, but there was _so much crap_. You couldn't just sweep it under the carpet. The carpet was bulging, the closet was full of skeletons, that was the nature of this psychotic job.

Although at least none of the _people_ were in the closet, he thought snidely. And don't get him wrong, he wouldn't change his job for the world, he just... wasn't sure what the point of socialising was. Great if you're shagging, he could see that, but he wasn't shagging and had no plans to. Which brought him onto Tosh, he thought morosely, and then realised he was being morose and stopped that train of thought dead. It was probably time for some more purple wine.

He checked his watch and realised he'd been gone a while, so he got a move on, weaving quickly back through the happy crowds to head upstairs, the bustle and music dropping away as he climbed. His thoughts soured more with each flight of stairs. _Up, up, up to the land of repression and no fun_, he thought, and then he pushed open the heavy door.

And.

_Fuck me,_ he thought weakly.

It was no longer a land of repression and no fun.

The pool table had been abandoned, game unfinished, and Gwen and Rhys were rolling around together underneath it, shirts off, kissing furiously, one of Rhys's hands unsnapping the fastening of Gwen's bra as Owen stared. She shook the bra off and pushed her breasts into Rhys's waiting hands, and they both _groaned_, loud and embarrassing, and Owen looked sharply away, his gaze falling on Jack instead, and Jack was-- oh, God. Oh, Jack. Jack had his forearm braced against the mirror and was staring into his _own eyes_ as he jerked off, still fully dressed, hand pumping around the dark length of his cock - and Tosh, Owen realised, glimpsing in the mirror and looking around frantically, Tosh was in front of the twinkly fireplace, wreathed in smouldering shadows, sliding her arms around Ianto's neck and _kissing him_.

"Tosh," Owen blurted, feeling like he'd drunk a bucket of iced water. The sight of Ianto's pale fingers pressing into the sides of her black jacket, making the leather crease and curve to her shape - it _did_ something to him.

She unwound languorously from Ianto and gave him a beatific smile. "Owen," she said, voice pitched above the roomful of soft sighs and panting.

Owen was abruptly very, very angry. "What the fuck, people?" he yelled, slamming the door behind him, and they all looked up, though Rhys's hands were still busy undoing Gwen's jeans.

"You're back," Gwen said, bright as a button, and grinned down at Rhys. "I like Owen," she told him, conspiratorially. "There's something about him."

She did not just say that. Oh my fucking God, Owen thought, she did _not_ just say that!

"What is wrong with you?" Owen shouted, and Ianto, damn him, one arm around Tosh's waist, raised his hand helpfully.

"I think it's the bar snacks," he said.

Owen stared. "What?"

"The..." Ianto said, faltering as Tosh looked up at him delightedly and then wriggled under his arm, "the bar snacks? The vintage penny mix," he said, and Owen looked around wildly, then stormed over to the pool table where a cream-coloured paper bag lay crumpled open, its contents spilling out on the green felt like jewels.

"It's a bit of a gimmick," Ianto continued blithely, "but actually quite a clever marketing idea, and I thought, 'everyone likes penny mix!', so I got a scoop of everything - and I think something in there must have reacted with your alien wine."

"Oh, my God," Owen muttered, examining handfuls of the contents of the bag - fizzy cola bottles, wine gums, pear drops, liquorice - _who the fuck eats liquorice? stupid Ianto_ \- jelly babies, mint imperials, flying saucers... Any number of disaccharides, ketones, sugar alcohols, preservatives...

"Fuck," Owen said wildly, his hands covered in granulated sugar. "I have to take all this back to my lab and test it! Stay here, and don't - don't do anything! _Anything_, alright? Drink water!"

"Oh, don't be such a bore," Jack drawled.

Owen froze, his heart hammering in his temples. "What?"

Jack shrugged idly, then raised an eyebrow. "I said, don't be such a bore, Owen. I mean, who's it hurting?"

"He's right," Tosh said, and Owen gazed at her in wounded surprise. She looked like an advert for breakfast cereal or a health spa or something, poised and cool and luminous, with just enough mischief in her gaze to sell sell sell. She gave him a reassuring look, which would have been more effective if she weren't _in Ianto's arms_. "We're all perfectly lucid," she said, "we're just--"

It was too much. "You're not perfectly lucid," Owen exploded, "you were just kissing Ianto! That is not perfectly lucid behaviour, that is _wrong_\--"

"I take offence to that," Ianto said, to the room at large.

"As do I," Jack called.

"--It _is_ wrong," Owen snapped, waving away their stupid fucking _wrong_ interruptions and focusing on Tosh, "it is wrong for you, I know it is, I'd know if there was something between you and Ianto and there _isn't_."

"He is pretty, though," Tosh said, as if that explained everything, and Ianto smiled down at her.

"That's not the point," Owen growled. He was panting, and his vision was edged with an angry mist. "You can't stand there and tell me this isn't out of character, because you are _not_ yourself right now."

"You're overreacting," Tosh said kindly. "You told me the wine was harmless, and I believe you. Whatever it is in the penny mix will metabolise out of our systems again in a few hours - there can't be anything worse than colouring or sweeteners--"

"Aspartame consumption has been linked to hyperactivity in teenagers," Ianto put in helpfully. His hand was gently kneading Tosh's hip.

"--So it stands to reason," Tosh continued - and oh God, she was reasoning with him, Owen couldn't cope when a pretty girl applied _reason_ \- "that the effects of lowered inhibitions, heightened sensation, et cetera, will fade away then as well. We've got a room that locks, we're all adults, you know better than any of us that we're all healthy... and it'll save a fortune on booze," she finished, and gave Owen a sweet, sweet smile.

"Amen to that," Jack called. He was touching his reflection's fingertips in the mirror.

"So come here," Tosh added, her voice warming, "and kiss me before you decide this party's no fun."

Owen looked from one to the other, from Gwen, topless and clearly bored with this discussion, ducking to kiss Rhys's bare chest, to Jack, watching him through the mirror, eyes scornful and amused, to Ianto, standing behind Tosh, nuzzling her temple with his mouth.

Ianto caught his eye and lifted one hand invitingly, tilting his head; his collar was three buttons open and he looked good enough to eat.

Owen focused finally on Tosh, standing there delicate and brazen, and if Ianto looked good enough to eat then Tosh, with her black shiny jacket and smooth skin and bare legs beneath that neat, prim skirt, her hair already slightly ruffled and her eyes flashing with promise...

"What the hell," Owen said, and crammed an assortment of sweets into his mouth, and crossed the room to her. It was like chewing sherbet fireworks.

"That's more like it," he heard Jack say approvingly, as he swallowed the tangy squidgy mouthful of sweetness and reached for Tosh's outstretched hand. "_That's_ the Owen we know and love."

It was amazing how quickly the angry red mist burned away from Owen's head; the reaction of whatever it was with the alien wine must be hideously potent, or maybe that was just the effect of Tosh giving him a blinding smile and tilting her head up, and kissing him.

It was like being set on fire, every synapse waking up and _singing_.

Heightened sensation, Tosh had called it. Diminished inhibitions. _Could've mentioned the insane spike in libido_, Owen thought, as the simple slide of Tosh's damp lips against his own made him think of fucking, of skin and friction and the many, many ways his cock could feel good right now. He opened his mouth and shuddered at the flicker of her tongue between his lips; sucked it and she made this amazing noise, her hands sliding up into his hair.

Owen made an answering noise in his chest, tasting the pear drop acetone linger in her mouth. He was breathing in the smell of her, musky and warm and subtly perfumed, utterly delicious. He stepped closer and felt Ianto's hand slide from her hip to his, and fuck, _Ianto_, he'd somehow forgotten about Ianto. He withdrew his overloaded awareness just enough to encompass him and realised that Ianto was kissing Tosh's neck from behind - realised he was responsible for at least some of her breathy sighs into Owen's mouth.

Owen reached down and pulled Ianto's other hand onto his hip, and groaned when Ianto said "Mmm" against Tosh's neck and tugged Owen close.

Owen was hard, which he'd known abstractly, like he tended to know if he had a headache but also a lot of computer stuff to do, or if he was sitting working with sunlight on the back of his neck: a sensation, but not relevant to the state of play. As Ianto pulled him against Tosh, though, and Tosh's hands tightened in his hair and her tongue slid into his mouth, as Owen's cock pushed against her body, urged closer by Ianto's hands, the fact that he was hard became very relevant indeed.

"Oh, God," he mumbled, and Tosh heard and laughed against his mouth, shimmying out of her jacket. It fell to the floor in a thunk of heavy fabric, and then Tosh was reaching both hands down between them and quickly, deftly discarding Owen's belt. The contrast of her warm soft body after the stiff leather jacket hitched the intimacy of touching her to a new and daunting level.

"Oh, God," Owen mumbled again, and then Tosh broke the kiss to look down, and Owen found himself at eye level with Ianto. _Ianto_, who was smirking like he'd seen Owen checking him out earlier, like he knew that Owen always knew exactly how many buttons on Ianto's collar were undone.

"What?" Owen said, his voice hoarse.

"Your face," Ianto said. "When you came in - when you saw her kiss me. Who'd have thought," he said, teasingly, slipping one hand under Owen's t-shirt, brushing his fingers over the skin of Owen's stomach and leaving vapour trails of sensation, "that the aloof Dr Harper would get so flustered so easily? It's almost as if--"

"If I kiss you will it shut you up?" Owen demanded, squirming as Tosh worked on his fly, the fabric distended by the upward press of his cock.

Ianto blinked, glancing to the side, then said cheerfully, "Yup."

"Good to know," Owen said gruffly, tilting his head over Tosh's shoulder and kissing Ianto's mouth, more eagerly than he meant to.

Ianto's fingers fanned hot and firm on Owen's waist, and his mouth opened readily, and he tasted of liquorice, which Owen hated, but he kissed _dirty_, which Owen loved. Tosh got his fly open and reached in, and Owen sucked his stomach in to give her room and tried not to shove rudely into her hand, and _did_ shove his tongue rudely into Ianto's mouth because Ianto seemed to like that, and because it felt like every swirl of Ianto's tongue was transmitted directly to his cock.

Owen's hands groped helplessly, one finding Tosh's elbow, the other pushing aside Ianto's waistcoat and grabbing a handful of the hot smooth shirt beneath. His knuckles pressed hard against Ianto's chest. He groaned into Ianto's mouth as Tosh's hand closed around him, and Tosh straightened and started kissing his neck; Ianto moved aside to give her some room, reaching up to hold Owen's head still, apparently wanting to kiss the living daylights out of him even as Tosh explored his cock. Her fingers were slender and decisively firm, and every thoughtful nudge came dangerously close to making Owen's knees buckle.

Owen groaned again, and Ianto scratched down the back of his neck; feeling like his head might fall off, like his shoulders were a lattice of hot and cold, Owen dragged Ianto's lower lip between his teeth and sucked.

Ianto growled, kissing him harder, spreading his hand warm and huge over Owen's jaw, and he must have done something to Tosh as well because she gasped against Owen's throat, practically writhing between them. _Fuck_, Owen thought desperately, letting them strip off his jacket and drop it, almost overwhelmed by the flurry of touches, wet and soft, rough and firm. He wanted a bed, a wall - hell, even the pool table - to lean against, explore those gasps a little further-- and then, all of a sudden, Jack was there.

Owen realised Jack was there because Ianto paused in kissing him, stilling against Owen's mouth, then slowly disentangled and looked round.

Jack's eyes were dark, dark, dark.

"Got bored of playing with yourself," Ianto said, with a deadpan eyebrow, though his voice was pure gravel.

"Never," Jack grinned, and then lowered his voice and told Ianto: "but do you have any idea how hot you look right now?"

Tosh took her hands out of Owen's pants and turned in his arms, leaning back against his chest and watching Jack with interest. Owen swallowed. It felt amazingly good to wrap his arms around her, hug her back against him; beyond sexy and into sublime.

Jack had tucked his fingers into Ianto's belt, stepping close. "I want to steal you away," he said, his voice low.

"Maybe I'm busy," Ianto said, tilting his head, leaning his hips into Jack's hands but keeping his shoulders back.

Jack flashed his teeth. "I can make you busier."

"This is fun, though," Ianto said, nodding at Tosh and Owen without looking away from Jack's face, giving him a pointed smile. "You thought Owen would never--"

"He won't," Jack interrupted, knowingly.

Owen raised his eyebrows, tightening his arms guardedly around Tosh. "Won't what?"

Jack looked at him sardonically. "You won't let Ianto fuck you."

"I might," Owen said, and Ianto gave him a sharp, interested look.

Jack stepped in between them and told Ianto, "Okay, but he won't let you fuck him like _I_ do," and then winked at Owen and said, as an aside, "You wouldn't want to."

_Fuck_, Owen thought, licking his lips; and then Tosh turned in his arms, going up on her toes, deliberately squirming her hip against his erection and saying raggedly into his ear, "_That_ is _quite_ an image."

"Fuck," Owen gasped, refocusing on her, feeling a sharp rush of lust at the knowing smirk on her face. His hands were trembling; he tried to calm himself, smoothing a few strands of hair behind her ear with his thumb and looking directly into her eyes, then realised his mistake. He _never_ looked directly into Tosh's eyes. Normally, he made a point of it. "God," he said roughly, dimly aware of Jack triumphantly kissing Ianto somewhere behind her shoulders, "you're lovely."

Tosh quirked a grin that made Owen's stomach clench. "Isn't pillow talk usually reserved for _after_ sex?"

Owen's cock twitched, and he felt his pulse rate increase as he pitched his voice to casual, careless. "Well, seeing as there aren't any pillows here, I thought I'd get that in early."

"There're walls, though," she said, voice low with that luminous promise. "Plenty of vertical surfaces. And horizontal ones. That pool table." Owen kissed her hard. "The floor," she mumbled, against his mouth, arching up against him, hands fisting his t-shirt over his breastbone, crushing herself close.

Owen gathered her up against him, loving how _small_ she was, how huge his hands felt encircling her waist, cupping the back of her head. "Let's start with vertical," he said, swinging her round and walking her backwards until she hit the wall by the mirror, and Tosh opened her mouth and sucked his tongue, her hands sliding up to palm his ears, his jaw.

Owen clenched his stomach. He was trying to not to lose control, but it was hard with Tosh moving against him, flexing under his hands and _panting_. It was the panting that undid him most, because he never saw Tosh out of breath - in danger, she was always grim and stony, whilst a happy Tosh tended towards the charming and shy. Hearing her pant in his ear, feeling her breath come hard and fast on his face, her shoulders rising and falling, breasts rubbing his chest-- it was hot.

"You're so hot," he muttered, and Tosh smiled hard against his mouth and then shoved at his arms, twisting them around until Owen's shoulderblades hit the wall and pushing up his t-shirt. She pressed him backwards with both hands as she bent to lick his chest. Owen caught his breath as her mouth slid wet and hot over his left nipple, one hand holding his t-shirt up and the other stroking greedily down his stomach.

He wrenched his t-shirt off, his nipples going tight and infuriatingly sensitive, and then she was-- no, she wasn't-- _yes_, she _was_, Tosh was working her way down his body and dropping to her knees. She was moving with the single-minded purpose she normally reserved for cracking computer code, drawing open Owen's fly and taking his cock in her mouth. _And holy fuck_, Owen thought blindly, leaning back against the cool wall and scrunching his hands into fists by his sides, Gwen moaning approvingly in the background, _this couldn't be happening_. Tosh could not be sucking his dick in front of the others - that wasn't, it didn't - she wasn't _like_ that--

But fuck, did it feel good.

Owen tipped his head back, the rasp his own breath undercut with the noisy panting of Jack, Ianto, _Rhys_... Tosh's hand splayed against Owen's stomach and scratched, and Owen gasped, the slide of her tongue on his cock making the rest of his body tremble. His brain was stuttering from incredulity to denial. Tosh wasn't like this, he reminded himself; Tosh wasn't impulsive or reckless or wild, she was _Tosh_, and made great sandwiches, and would never normally drop to her knees and take his dick in her mouth without the slightest persuasion. Which was good, because otherwise he might have to marry her.

She started sucking rhythmically, making him breathe unsteadily, teasing his thoughts out into a swirling mass. It occurred to him that maybe she _was_ like this, underneath.

Maybe this was what would come to the surface when she wasn't buttoning everything down.

_That_ thought started him trembling anew, deep inside. Tosh's hand slid up his thigh, firm through the fabric of his jeans, and Owen grabbed it and interlaced their fingers, squeezing and inhaling hard.

He wasn't with Tosh. He wasn't with Tosh because she didn't strike him as the sort of girl that could cope with the useless, sex-driven, frequently grumpy boyfriend he knew he was incapable of not being. He liked sex with strangers, who didn't know enough to complain, or he liked friends with benefits - not something he'd ever thought would turn Tosh on.

Something was turning her on, though, and if this wasn't friends with benefits then fuck it, maybe friends with benefits wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Maybe--

He looked down. Her face was in soft layers of shadow, but he could see she had her eyes closed, mouth working him like she _loved_ it. Owen couldn't resist touching her face and then swallowed hard when her eyes flashed open. He must look a mess, he thought immediately - dazed and confused and gaping with pleasure - but she _grinned_ around his cock and guided his hands to her hair, and Owen had to grit his teeth not to come.

"Hey," he panted, "wait, I want," and she shook her head, the silky heat of her mouth tightening and _shifting_ around him, and then she rubbed decisively with the flat of her tongue, and that was _it_, that was it, endgame, over, fuck.

"Fuck," Owen said hoarsely, squeezing his eyes shut, "fuck, _fuck_," biting off the words as his orgasm rattled through his body, as Tosh swallowed and nuzzled and gripped his fingers hard.

A few seconds later Owen slid to the floor, still mumbling, "Fuck," under his breath, and she sank down with him, moving to kiss his bare shoulders, nibbling his jaw. Owen turned his head blindly and caught Tosh's mouth against his, and stopped swearing.

The hammering in his head began to subside into a heavy slow pounding, and as Tosh slipped her fingers under his chin and steadied him against her lips, Owen felt like he'd just discovered sex for the first time.

"That was... Tosh, that was," he mumbled, fastening his jeans again with trembling fingers, and she laughed against his mouth, a soft shaky breath.

"Overdue?"

"Um," Owen said, too hazy to tapdance through what he _knew_ to be a minefield. He was sure it was a minefield. He frowned blearily as she kissed him, salty and sweet, not waiting for a reply. It was a minefield, right? This couldn't be simple, could it? They couldn't be -- the words rushed into place -- cutting through the crap?

"You're thinking too loudly," Tosh murmured, and Owen broke off the kiss with a strangled bark of laughter, twisting his face aside as - God, he wasn't blushing, was he?

Flustered, he jerked his gaze away, then he felt his mouth drop open as reality caught up with him: a carnage of flung-aside clothing and abandoned decorum, bodies moving sinuously, sweat gleaming. Jack and Ianto were stroking each other, their foreheads pressed together, arms pumping, the crook of Jack's elbow locked behind Ianto's neck. Gwen was slumped naked over Rhys, straddling him, one of his hands still in her hair. She'd propped her chin on Rhys's shoulder and was watching with a blearily predatory smile as Tosh shifted in Owen's arms. Owen swallowed at the heat in her gaze, his attention stuttering back again: Tosh was twisting and purring against him, panting softly, practically writhing in his _lap_.

"God," Owen heard himself say wryly, "where's my manners?"

Part of him couldn't believe life had dealt him this card: the opportunity to explore her. And while Gwen watched, fuck. And with Ianto and Jack right _there_. His hands were moving of their own accord, moulding against the curves of her. It was addictive, the feel of her: the dip of her tiny waist, her rounded arse in that thin green skirt, the backs of those sleek strong thighs.

Tosh broke breathlessly into his reverie. "Manners? You?" She sounded offensively amused at the concept.

"Yeah," Owen growled, indignant now, getting up on his knees and tugging her to her feet. His head swam, but now he was more together than she was. She was shivering, he felt, letting him maneuver her without protest. She gasped as he pushed up her top and mouthed her stomach, flat and warm with a dusting of silky hair. She was shivering a _lot_, and he grinned against her skin, sliding his fingers under her skirt and pushing it up, her thighs going rigid under his palms.

"Oh, yeah," he said leisurely, beginning to feel like he had the advantage at last. He eased her narrow skirt all the way up over her hipbones and ran his thumbs down the black scalloped edge of her knickers, rasping against her inner thighs.

"I'll show you manners," he said, leaning in to drag his lips down the path his thumbs had traced, feeling the heat of her skin through the thin fabric, loving how she pressed forwards. "I'll show you--"

"God, Owen, get on with it," Tosh muttered hoarsely, her hand slipping over his and shoving her knickers unceremoniously down. Her other hand was in his hair, hot and grasping, and Owen's eyes closed of their own accord as he let her guide his mouth to where she wanted it.

The feel of her, against his lips, made his cock twitch.

"Oh," she muttered, as he stroked the tip of his tongue lightly over her, rasping over the soft-spikiness of trimmed hair, breathing in hard. She smelled _amazing_, and tasted faintly salty, and then - as he explored more firmly, pulling her thighs apart with both hands and sliding his tongue along the inside edge of her pussy - oh, yes, that bright hot coppery tang.

"Fuck, Owen," Tosh bit off, crooking her knee against his shoulder and _pressing_ against his mouth, and Owen shivered, definitely beginning to get hard again, bracing his knees squarely against the ground so he could hold them both steady. He felt her sway and enjoyed taking her weight in his hands, enjoyed her shudder when he nipped at the velvety skin of her upper thighs.

"Please," Tosh said, pawing at his hair. Owen grinned and complied, teasing his tongue into her, stroking soft and wet and feeling a tight, muscular flutter. It set his skin tingling, his cock rising, beginning to pulse with renewed sensation. That wine was pretty amazing stuff, he thought. Bottle it and he could make a small fortune.

Bottle the sound of Tosh moaning, and he'd never need work again.

He changed the stroke of his tongue, tracing narrow deep circles and then broad shallow lines, feeling like all his senses were on fire. The soft sound of her breathing above him, the rhythmic grip of her hands in his hair-- it was flattering, he thought giddily. Made him feel like he was in charge. This was it - this was having the advantage.

And then Jack drawled, "Ah," a pure filthy drawn-out sound that made Owen's cock _swell_, and he felt Tosh clutch at his ears.

"Aw, yeah, keep _doing_ that," Jack growled, and Tosh's hips swayed drunkenly against him, a sudden rush of slick salt that tasted like the best sex he'd ever had. Owen swallowed and sucked, reeling, his nipples going hard. He felt like Jack was groaning right in his ear, and Tosh was moving like she was attuned to both of them: riding Jack's voice higher even as she clenched around Owen's tongue.

"Yeah, keep doing that," she said breathlessly, her voice starting to shake, and seriously, who was Owen kidding? _He_ wasn't in charge, none of them were; they were all feeding off each other, clashing in the waves of this chemical storm. He could see Gwen in his mind's eye, staring at them still, hot and unapologetic.

He imagined her coming over, joining them, and almost whimpered, and then Jack was panting loudly, biting off curses and unintelligible names, an unmistakable rumble to orgasm that made Tosh grind feverishly in Owen's hands.

"Please, please," Tosh whined, rocking against him for an endless long moment-- and then she said, "_Uh_," and Owen blinked up and realised Ianto was there, enfolding her in his arms from behind. Kissing her neck, sliding his hands up the front of her top; Tosh made that noise again, soft and guttural, arching back against him, and Owen's vision went fuzzy and loud at the edges, as every damn drop of blood left his brain.

They looked like _porn_ to him. Tosh's head thrown back, black hair spiked across her eyes and over her shoulders, Ianto digging his teeth into the strong line of her neck, frowning like she tasted too good to be true. And she probably did: Tosh was gleaming with sweat, her skin like caramel satin. She was gilded in the low light, mind-numbingly enticing, and the sight of Ianto's hairy forearm disappearing under her top made Owen's heart pound.

Owen growled and started sucking again, wanting to explore every plane of her, trying to convey how damn much he approved without stopping for air. He heard her gasp, felt it like fireworks down his spine, then reached out blindly and ran his hand up the back of Ianto's calf.

Ianto's hand came down on his bare shoulder, firm and sure, urging him to lick her harder.

Fuck, that was hot.

"You like that," Ianto muttered, as Owen renewed his efforts at creativity, and Owen thought _yes, yes_, before belatedly realising that Ianto was talking to _Tosh_. "This is what you've wanted, ever since you laid eyes on him..."

"Yeah," Tosh panted, and Owen felt a wave of something sharp and exhilarating crash over him. She was _his_, he thought, and then she was rasping, "_Oh_, keep doing _that_\--" and tensed against him, again and again.

"Yes," Ianto was chanting, against her ear, holding her tight and holding Owen tightly against her; and then she shuddered between them, going soft all at once, and gave a low, heartfelt moan.

Owen pressed his head back against Ianto's wrist, carefully relaxing his grip of her, his head ringing.

"Fuck," Tosh said faintly, and staggered a couple of steps sideways, leaning heavily on Ianto and then groping her way to the wall. She pushed her skirt vaguely back down with one hand, leaving the black scrap of her knickers discarded on the floorboards. "I mean... I need... Uh. _Wow_."

Jack handed her a glass of water, and Owen blinked: where the hell had he appeared from? He had no right to be that smooth. But that was Jack all over: inappropriately filthy during innocuous events like Sunday lunch, then gallant amidst a drug-fueled orgy.

"Oh, God, yes," Tosh murmured, taking the glass in both hands, leaning back against the wall. She had a bite mark low on her neck - Ianto's teeth. Jack watched her drink, accepted the glass back off her wordlessly, then raised one finger and nudged a droplet of water off her lower lip. Owen's breath caught at the flash that went through Tosh's eyes, dark and sudden.

"Recovered?" Jack asked, his voice full of banked embers.

Owen looked between them, from the interested flattening of Tosh's eyebrows - and when had he learned to read her _eyebrows_, seriously? - to the courteous tilt of Jack's jaw, and knew they were going to fuck. Maybe not immediately, but some time, and for a long, long time. He could only hope to be invited to watch.

He glanced up to see what Ianto made of it, and saw he was watching them with that knowing half-smile that had made Owen confess far too many petty crimes in the last two years.

"Almost," Tosh said, tasting the word, and Owen followed her gaze to the quirk of Jack's lips.

Belatedly, Owen realised that the space she'd been occupying - between his body and Ianto's - was now vacant. Because she'd moved over there, now there was just a breath of air between them. He realised with a shocking slowness that he was kneeling topless before Ianto - a decisive Ianto who _bit_ people - with his head cupped in the palm of his hand.

"If there's anything I can do to help..." Jack was murmuring to Tosh, but Owen was staring at the raw grain of floorboards now and could barely hear him.

Ianto's hand softened against the back of his head, tousled his hair, rubbed a fingertip over his earlobe. Light, uncomplicated touches that shouldn't have made Owen's cock throb. Time seemed to slow down. A part of him wanted to jump nervously to his feet - and another part wanted to stay right there.

He glanced back up, his mouth going dry. Ianto's gaze was heavy. He dragged the pad of his thumb over Owen's lower lip, and Owen exhaled shakily before licking it.

"Hmm," Tosh said, pushing off the wall and leaning in slowly as if to kiss Jack; then smiled against his mouth and ducked past him. "I'm going to get some more sweets."

Jack swung round after her, mouth open, his expression somewhere between indignant and impressed. "Hey," he complained, and then turned again, addressing Owen and Ianto. "Did you see that? I thought this wine was supposed to make people _give in_ to their fantasies."

"Maybe she fantasizes about telling you 'no'," Ianto said, and Owen felt Ianto's attention leaving him, like a cloud had passed in front of the sun.

"Oh, come on. I can't imagine anyone would fantasize about _that_," Jack grinned, and this was fucking ridiculous. Ianto's thumb was still in Owen's _mouth_.

Owen bit him, then felt like he'd tugged on a panther's tail when Ianto jerked his hand away and focused sharply back on him, eyebrows raised. He read something in Owen's face, gave him one of those half smiles, and Owen felt a surge of something complicated and hastily stood up. He was still aroused, still hard, still clocking the open buttons of Ianto's shirt, but he was damned if he was going to let Ianto smile at him like that - like he _knew_ him.

Ianto's eyes were very dark. "Owen," he rasped, and raised his hand again, brushing Owen's jaw with the back of one finger.

Owen felt another of those shaky breaths leave him, felt himself about to do something unforgivably needy, and then Gwen's voice broke in loudly - "God, that's good" - and Owen twisted round on grateful automatic, sweat prickling all down his spine.

Not that new scene confronting him was any less debilitating, but at least it was out of arm's reach: Gwen was sitting astride Rhys, wearing his t-shirt and apparently nothing else, and Tosh was resting a hip against the pool table and feeding her _something_ from the paper bag. Her fingers, it looked like; and then Owen realised Tosh was dabbing her fingertips in the loose crystals of sugar and letting Gwen lick them off, and something inside him went molten.

Rhys, pinned between Gwen's bare thighs and with what had to be the best view in the house, looked like all his birthdays had come at once.

"Oh, yeah," Jack said, low and approving, and Owen looked round to exchange rueful grins with him and then saw that no, Jack's attention was elsewhere: Ianto had him pinned against the wall. One thigh between Jack's knees, one hand up Jack's shirt, muttering something in Jack's ear while Jack grinned and panted, his eyes half closed.

"More," Gwen said, her voice urgent, and Owen tore his eyes away from the movements of Ianto's hand and saw Gwen catching Tosh's wrist, sliding her tongue between her fingers.

Tosh's smile was luxuriantly reproving. "You have to learn to share," Tosh said, and Rhys gave a high-pitched laugh in the back of his throat, barely audible over the increasing volume of Jack's breathing.

"Oh my God," Owen said, hurrying over to them, almost tripping over his own discarded jacket as Tosh painted Gwen's lower lip with sugar and then bent down to suck it off. "Be nice - you're gonna give him a heart attack!"

The look Tosh gave _him_ was pure wickedness.

"I am being nice," she said, straightening up and shifting her hips against the edge of pool table. "You don't mind, do you, Rhys?" she asked, without looking away from Owen.

"No," Rhys croaked, and Gwen gave a little _movement_ with her hips, an unmistakable movement that Owen remembered intensely. She was dragging herself against Rhys's cock, under the flimsy cover of his t-shirt, _right there in front of him_.

Owen swallowed, sense-memories flooding his body. He hadn't been this uncomfortable with an erection in weeks, and realised that a part of him - a pretty damn ineffectual part - had been trying to pretend that Rhys and Gwen weren't here. He tried to find a neutral direction to look in, but the only realistic option was the ceiling, and he wasn't quite far gone enough to think that would look nonchalant - far from it. Jack might be able to pull off nonchalance with a massive hard-on, but Owen was not Jack. As Ianto had made perfectly clear.

"I don't know what you're worried about," Tosh was saying, dipping her hand back in the bag, swirling it around. She held her fingers out to him, eyes compelling with mischief. "No harm done."

Owen looked at the crystals of sugar clinging to her fingers, then focused on Tosh's face, sly and encouraging. And wow, what had it come to that Tosh was coaxing _him_ to loosen up?

"Go on," Tosh said, as if reading his mind, "have a taste."

Ianto's bite mark seemed to glow on her neck. Now was not, Owen thought sagely, a good time to sober up and have to deal with things like that.

Fuck it, he thought, and leant in. He felt the tingly grittiness against his lips, the heat of her fingertips beneath, then pure sweet colour as he sucked. Almost immediately he felt a chemical _tightening_ in his brain, felt his inhibitions - Tosh, Gwen, _Rhys_ \- melting away. All that mattered was this sensation, this rushing of blood and the craving to be touched. No wonder Gwen was grinding on Rhys; in her position he'd probably be doing the same.

"Good, isn't it," Tosh said, smirking as he licked breathlessly at her fingers, and then she was closing on him, pushing into his space, kissing his neck.

Owen grabbed the pool table with one hand, Tosh's hip with the other, almost moaning as she pushed against his cock, firm and warm. His body was enveloped with sensation, sublime and ridiculous: the brushing of her hair against his jaw felt like pins and needles, almost too light to bear, but the hot liquid slide of her tongue on his throat was another thing entirely.

"Oh, God," he breathed, and it didn't matter that Gwen and Rhys were right there, getting it on - hell, he actually liked it - "that's... You..."

"Mmm," Tosh said, against his throat, and the dreaminess in her voice spurred Owen into action. He was not going to be the only one insensible with lust, here, damnit. He curled his fingers in her hair and tilted her face up, kissed her until she got the idea, then applied both hands to stripping off her top and scooping her up onto the pool table.

Her thighs spread readily, her skirt riding up again. She blinked up at him, tousled and sultry, like a secretary seen through a Smirnoff bottle, then twined her arms around his neck and kissed him, drawing him close.

Owen could taste his own skin on her lips, salty and feverish, and there was a linger of sweetness as well, of cola and sherbet melted across her tongue. Tosh's hot, damp skin felt incredible against his chest, her breasts pressing up under the deliciously scant lace of her bra. It had that same scalloped black edging as her knickers had done, scratching at his fingers. Owen tried vainly to get it off, but his hands were too clumsy because touching her, God, he couldn't get enough. He ground his hips and she hissed, twisting against him, fresh sweat breaking out against his chest.

Behind him, he could hear Jack and Ianto panting. The room was full of the music below, the rhythmic rustling of fabric and the slap of skin on skin. Jack and Ianto, Rhys and Gwen, or maybe everyone with everyone, he couldn't tell. He _could_ make out the low burr of Gwen's voice, caught between a sigh and a moan, heart-stoppingly familiar: she was close, he could tell. She was going to get off soon. If Owen were underneath her, he'd be gripping her waist and shoving up ruthlessly, trying to get himself off before she'd frenziedly come and then collapse, good for nothing more.

He probably shouldn't, he thought narrowly - kissing his way along Tosh's shoulder, gnawing the bite mark Ianto had made - be thinking about how he'd fuck Gwen while Rhys was _actually_ doing the fucking.

Tosh groaned, reverberating under his mouth. "Please," she said, starting to push frantically down on his shoulders - and that was becoming familiar too. Owen grinned, taking his time. Everything felt good right now, _everything_, every twitch of her body, every inch of her skin. He kissed his way down her stomach, slowly dropping to his knees, reaching behind her to undo the zip of her skirt, tugging it to the floor.

"Gorgeous," he said, against the sharp angle of her hipbone, stroking her bum with both hands, feeling her knees nudge against his bare chest. He started to tease her, drawing slow figures with his tongue, feathering his fingers over her skin until she was shifting sinuously and making plaintive whimpering noises.

"God, Rhys," Gwen said loudly, and heat flashed through Owen's chest. _Fuck teasing_, he thought, and rested his forehead against Tosh's stomach, pressing open mouthed kisses deliberately down.

"Fuck," Tosh hissed, as his tongue nudged over her clit, and her hips sawed forwards and he thought, _yes, this_, and just sucked hard.

It was as if he'd plugged her into a live wire: she shook, gasping, and then almost collapsed on him, and Owen felt a rush of hot satisfaction and caught her, guiding her carefully to the floor.

"Gratifying," he said quietly, pitching his voice so the others couldn't hear him. Not that they seemed to be listening.

Tosh heard, though. One of her hands smacked out ineffectually and cuffed his chin.

Owen smirked. "What?" he asked, keeping his voice low, playful. "I thought you'd be more complicated than that, without Ianto chatting away in your ear. More of a challenge..."

"That wasn't-- I just--" Tosh mumbled, and Owen raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, that _wasn't_ it?" he demanded, and his cock pulsed: she _was_ a challenge. Excellent. "Well, in that case," he said, pushing her legs apart and easing himself down between them, holding her steady and speaking against her inner thigh, "my apologies, but I'm going to have to continue."

"Well if you _have_ to," Tosh muttered, and he could hear the grin in her voice, "don't let me-- _ah_, fuck," and now he was grinning too, licking soft and sly, as she wrapped her legs around his shoulders and arched up eagerly against his tongue. This was more like it; the angle was better and she was spread beneath his mouth, allowing him to make his point more... subtly. He trailed the tip of his tongue in sweet, swirling patterns until she was nudging her hips restlessly, then circled her clit a couple of times and exhaled, hot and damp and slow.

Tosh gave a frustrated moan, and it was, yeah. _Gratifying_. Owen licked his lips and repeated himself, exhaling hotly, then pursed his lips to blow a chill across her wet skin. Her palm slapped the floor and she squirmed, swearing. Owen did it again, softer, dragging his tongue slower and lighter than before, making the circles smaller, listening with satisfaction as the timbre of her moans upped from frustrated to desperate.

"Damn you," he heard her pant, and her palm slid greedily onto the back of his head even as her thighs muffled his ears.

He rewarded her responsiveness with a few long, generous licks, then settled back into teasing, making his tongue soft and curious. The room had fallen quiet around them, he realised, with a silent thrill at the thought that the rest of them might be watching _him_. Tosh started to tremble, and he realised his own breathing was racing. It felt good to be the main attraction.

"I'm, oh, fuck," Tosh was saying, each word accompanied by a helpless jerk of her hips, and Owen felt like the very best kind of bastard, teasing and retreating, sliding his tongue deeply into her and then licking flat and broad and _firm_. He just wanted her to _feel_ it, to be blown away, to have no doubt tomorrow morning that he'd been the best. _Watch and learn, boys_, he thought smugly, as he drew back and she thrust her hips at him, her fingers twisting in his hair.

"Owen, _God_," she growled, the loud roughness of her voice making him so damn happy. "You, I was so close, I can't believe you _stopped_\--"

"Can't seem to do anything right, can I?" Owen murmured, forestalling her reply by working an arm under her hips and really going for it, feeling her thighs clutch at his head; sliding two fingers into her and feathering his tongue. She threw an arm over her head and _keened_, squeezing around his fingers in long, slippery shudders, and Owen kept his tongue moving over her clit, wet and hot, determined to make it last, and last, and last.

"Fuck," she gasped eventually, dragging in huge breaths and pushing him back a fraction, her fist softly shaking in his hair. Owen let her come down before slowly leaning forwards and beginning to lap again, coaxing out a few more trembling sighs.

"He's good at that," came Gwen's voice, behind him, and Owen froze. She did not just say that.

"Yeah," Tosh said dreamily, just as Gwen added quickly, "Uh, judging by your expression."

Owen closed his eyes in amused despair, licking slowly, calmingly, breathing out warmly, then drawing back and wiping his mouth. Tosh gave a faint sigh and rolled onto her side, curling in on herself, breathing hard.

Owen looked up.

Gwen was still wearing Rhys's t-shirt. She had stood to retrive her spritzer from somewhere, and was sucking it through two short black straws, watching him with a heavy, sultry expression. The t-shirt was far too wide for her, and came down to the top of her thighs. Her lips were parted, and Owen had a strong suspicion she didn't have any knickers on.

He sat back, propping himself up on his hands, letting his eyes glint up at her. "You know," he said, as if it was a suggestion, as if Gwen _didn't_ know, "give me ten minutes, I'd break you as well."

"'M not broken," Tosh protested, slurring slightly.

Gwen glanced at Rhys, still sprawled on the floor. He had the dazed expression of a man waking up and seeing aliens for the first time. Or attending his first orgy; he was doing up his jeans in slow, distracted stages.

"Um," Gwen said.

Owen meditated briefly on the subject of inhibitions. "Rhys," he said, after a moment. "Pass me that bottle, will you? I need a drink."

As Rhys knelt up to grab it off the pool table, Owen mouthed deliberately to Gwen, "I want you."

Gwen made a frantic expression, looking at Rhys's bowed head, then glared at Owen, gritting her teeth and turning her head warningly. "Yeah," she muttered, "me too."

"It's wearing off again," Owen said, pitching his voice loud enough to carry. "And it's not that late - I wouldn't mind a bit more. Who's with me?"

"I'm... yes," Tosh said, raising her hand and rolling onto her back, then dropping her arm over her eyes. She looked... licentious.

"Why not," Gwen said, watching Owen, then glanced innocently round at Rhys, who'd leaned past her to hand Owen back the bottle. "What do you think?"

"Uh," Rhys said, and he was looking across the room, where Jack had Ianto pinned against the wall and was, as they watched, sliding down his body and rubbing his face against Ianto's thigh. "I... what do you think?"

"I think it would be fun," Gwen said, and then added loyally, "but if you want to go home, we could--"

"You go ahead," Rhys said vaguely, still watching Jack mouth Ianto's thigh through his black pinstripe trousers. He was holding Ianto's hands against the dark red wall, Ianto's head falling back as he groaned. "I might, uh. Take a break."

"Not a good idea," Owen said quickly, taking a mouthful of the purple wine and then pressing the bottle back into Rhys's hands. Jack was still holding Ianto's fists solidly against the wall, but had somehow managed to get Ianto's dick poking out of his trousers, and was giving long slow licks up the length of it. "Believe me. The last thing you want to do is sober up while we're all screwing like rabbits."

Rhys blinked at him, then raised his eyebrows at Gwen. "Do this a lot, do you?"

"No!" Gwen said quickly, "No, sweetheart, this is the first time." She moved closer to him, putting her hands on his arms. "And if you're at all uncomfortable, we can leave."

"I don't want to _leave_," Rhys said scornfully, then glanced over at the wall again. Ianto had pulled his hands free, folding one behind his own head, clamping the other white-knuckled on Jack's shoulder. The roll of his hips was filthy, shuddery, but Jack was taking it with his eyes closed. "Just... is _everyone_ else gay?"

Owen grinned at them, feeling like his flag was flying again. His blood was up. His brain was flooding with serotonin, his eyes were smiling, his cock felt full and warm. "More like... flexible," he drawled, drinking in the sound of Ianto moaning, dizzying and heartfelt.

"I'm not flexible," Gwen retorted, and then glanced at Tosh, lying with her arm over her eyes, knees softly bent, the dark lace of her bra rising and falling with her breath. "Well, not til today, anyway."

"We're staying," Rhys said immediately, and passed her the bottle.

Gwen's eyes flashed dark. "You're kidding," she said, and Rhys took bottle back and drank deeply before handing it back to her.

"Nope," he said, raising his voice over Ianto chanting softly, _Jack, yes, yes_. "One night only. Do what you like. And so will I," he added, almost a warning, "if that includes watching you with, uh. Her."

Gwen gave a low squeak, her eyes going huge, and Rhys gave her a lopsided smile. She set the bottle down on the pool table, gazing into his eyes. She kissed him, sudden and fierce, apparently not even hearing Ianto's uneven growl of "Oh, fuck, _Jack_\--" and then she strode over to where Tosh was sprawled and dropped to her hands and knees.

Definitely no knickers.

"Oh," Ianto moaned, but for all Owen desperately wanted to see how _exactly_ Jack was coaxing those sounds out of him, he couldn't tear his gaze away. He felt his mouth fall open as Gwen bent her head, her hair falling across Tosh's throat. Tosh twitched, her arm sliding away from her face, then froze and stared up into Gwen's eyes.

_Kiss her_, Owen thought, a narrow hard thought, holding his breath. Their faces were half-obscured by the slant of Gwen's hair. He saw Tosh focus on Gwen's mouth, then look back at her eyes, and then Gwen made a low, frustrated noise, and ducked, and kissed her.

"Bloody hell," Rhys croaked, as Tosh responded all at once, arching off the floor and closing her fists in Gwen's hair. One of Tosh's bare legs wrapped around Gwen's waist and tugged her down to lie on top of her, heel raking down the back of Gwen's bare thigh.

Owen joined him. "Yeah."

"Yeah," Jack agreed, lining up next to them, looking dazed.

"Um," Ianto said, hastily buttoning up his shirt, as if there were any chance he could look dignified after _that_. His face was flushed, his hair in debauched spikes, and he couldn't walk in a straight line. "I'll, uh, go get the drinks in, shall I?"

Owen barely cracked a smile, too busy watching them kiss. It was like his dreams were being handed to him on a silver platter with a cold beer. Tosh's hands looked pale buried in Gwen's hair, tan against the back of Gwen's neck, and she was scratching her, God, Owen could see the faint lines Tosh's fingernails were leaving in the fabric of Gwen's - Rhys's - t-shirt. He wanted to go to them so badly he could taste it. He gripped the edge of the pool table tightly in both hands. Wine or no wine, there was no _way_ he could--

"I've gotta say," Jack said quietly, interrupting Owen's thoughts, nudging Rhys with his elbow, "you don't see that every day."

Rhys cleared his throat. His voice was slightly strangled as he retorted, "I thought you did."

"You do?"

"Yeah," Rhys said, sounding equal parts dazed and defensive. "You get into this sort of thing all the time, don't you? Orgies and that, that's what I thought."

"Nah," Jack laughed. "Well, not all the time. Strictly only on days that end in a Y."

Owen grinned, without looking away from Tosh's hands gripping Gwen's hair.

"But seriously," Jack said, dropping his voice, "you never, uh... Anything, with a guy? There's something to be said for it."

"Uh huh."

"Mm-hm," Jack said, in that light and yet deliberately persuasive tone he was so good at, and Owen cracked a glance in his direction and saw that Jack's palm was over the front of Rhys's belt.

Huh.

Rhys said nothing, staring at Gwen licking Tosh's throat, heading down, trailing her hair across the curve of one breast. Gwen had made short work of her bra - God bless practiced fingers - and as Gwen's mouth slid over a dark, pointed nipple, her eyelashes fluttered closed, and Owen's cock flexed hard in his boxers. Gwen's mouth was a shining pink, and Owen could almost feel Tosh's goosebumps on his own tongue. Tosh's gasp carried.

And Jack-- Jack had nerve, Owen thought. Then as Jack's hand started rubbing and Rhys's eyes slid shut, Jack gave Owen a pointed nod, and oh, fuck. He didn't just have nerve; he had a vision.

Well, Owen was not one to argue with a man with a vision.

He dropped to his hands and knees and padded over to them, gritting his teeth as the hard length of his cock grew harder still. Gwen didn't seem to notice him approaching, and Tosh, _well_. One of Tosh's hands was in Gwen's hair, and Tosh was grinding off the floor at her, toes pointed. Tosh probably wouldn't notice an earthquake right now.

Owen crawled up the other side of Tosh's body and kissed her ear, then her cheek, and then Gwen was grabbing him and kissing him, tongue sliding soft and insistent into his mouth, and Owen breathed in the scent of her and nearly growled.

It wasn't that there was unfinished business, it honestly wasn't. There was just something about Gwen that drove him _wild_.

He nipped her lower lip and she made a noise into his mouth, and Owen felt Tosh's hand brush his face and God, Tosh, Tosh was _right there too_.

"Hey," Owen whispered, pulling back from Gwen's mouth and resting his forehead against hers, panting harshly, "still up for playing doubles?"

Gwen smirked and nodded, contriving to slide her lower lip over his top lip. Owen couldn't help but nudge into it, fitting his mouth back against hers. He sucked at the fruit pastel sweetness of her tongue, kissing her deeply, before dropping and beginning to nibble Tosh's neck.

"Good," he said, when Tosh tilted her head back and made a rumble of approval.

Gwen ducked and mirrored him, her mouth opening against Tosh's jaw and then sliding down. Her hair was everywhere, falling in her eyes, across Tosh's skin, getting in Owen's mouth as he started to kiss his way down Tosh's chest.

Fuck, he was so hard.

He bit lightly at Tosh's throat and she twitched like she'd been electrocuted, then cupped the back of his head and dragged him down to mirror the movements of Gwen's mouth on her breasts. Twist his arm, eh. Owen started breathing unsteadily, feeling the hard crinkle of skin beneath his mouth, swiping his tongue over Tosh's nipple and hearing her gasp. She had a hand in Gwen's hair as well, and Owen sucked and nibbled exactly like he wanted to, and didn't look at Gwen, didn't, fuck. Okay, did.

"Oh," Tosh hissed, curling off the floor, and Owen heard Rhys make a low incredulous noise. A quick glanced confirmed it: Jack's hand was disappearing into his jeans, his wrist moving slowly, Jack watching Rhys as closely as Rhys gazed at Tosh and Gwen.

Owen smoothed his damp hand over Tosh's stomach, then made a noise in his throat as Gwen's hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. He looked up and saw her peering at him, bright dark eyes behind the curtain of her hair, the dark pink of her mouth shining against Tosh's wet skin.

Gwen nudged at his wrist, and he got it, oh _yeah_ he got it--

He threaded their fingers together and let Gwen draw their hands between Tosh's legs, bumping the insides of her thighs.

"Oh," Tosh hissed again, bucking up and tipping her hips, and Owen started kissing down the curve of her breast as his middle two fingers, tangled with Gwen's, moved up, up. They pushed into Tosh's body, trapped against each other, slipping in easily because Tosh was wet, so wet, and Gwen made a noise that was possibly the hottest thing Owen had ever heard. He crooked his fingers, sliding against Gwen's, taking control because he knew this, he _knew_ this-- and Tosh came just like that, swearing and quaking around them, gloriously wet, skin slipping under Owen's mouth.

As Tosh relaxed, Owen moved his fingers deliberately against Gwen's, slender and slick and oh fucking _God_, that had actually just happened.

He realised he was smiling uncontrollably, and wondered if an enduring sense of happy incredulousness was yet another side effect of the purple alien wine. He tilted his head; Gwen was watching him, and when she saw him looking she grinned at him and rubbed his fingers, which set Tosh to whimpering again.

"C'mere," Owen said softly, before he could help himself, and Gwen looked scandalised, which was absolutely fucking hilarious.

Then Owen remembered that looking scandalised turned Gwen on.

"Alright," he said, his mouth crooking as he nodded at their hands, "come there."

Gwen opened her mouth as if to protest, then visibly reconsidered and shuffled down, Rhys's t-shirt riding up and giving Owen glimpses of thigh, hip, stomach.

They worked their way down Tosh's body, Tosh beginning to wriggle again beneath them, Owen's attention zinging helplessly from the slide of Gwen's lips to the taste of Tosh's sternum to the dull, insistent throb of his jeans-clad hard-on that nobody was taking care of. He nipped at the base of Tosh's belly and she spread her legs obediently wide, letting Gwen lie between them next to Owen, Gwen shivering as she dipped her mouth between Tosh's thighs.

Owen pressed the ridge of his cock hard against the floor, breathing unsteadily. The view was incredible; Gwen's shiny lips, pressing slow kisses against Tosh's pussy, while Tosh shifted and growled, tilting her hips back, fingers flexing against her own bare stomach. Owen ducked down and tried to mirror Gwen's kisses, but there wasn't room, and he was clumsy with heat and worried about crushing her, and to be honest Gwen seemed to be doing _just_ fine on her own.

He heard himself groan softly as Gwen slipped her hand over the back of his neck and held him away, and pushed her tongue deeply into Tosh's body, her eyes closed, eyelashes flickering, a crease in her forehead as her mouth worked.

"Fuck," Owen exhaled, wanting to _have_ her, have both of them - and was this what threesomes were like? Constant stimulation, little resolution? And then in one chaotic movement Gwen was tugging off her t-shirt and pulling his hand down between Tosh's legs. She pushed his fingers in as she slid her mouth up to Tosh's clit, and Owen gulped at the sheer wealth of naked curves spread out before him, and resolved that constant stimulation wasn't so bad after all.

Tosh moaned loudly and rocked her hips, clutching him, one fist twisting tightly into Gwen's hair.

"Oh, yeah," Owen breathed, fucking her with his fingers, and Tosh started swearing and gasping, digging her nails into Owen's shoulder as Gwen's cheeks hollowed. Owen felt the slippery heat get wetter and _tighter_, crooking his fingers and ignoring the strain building in his wrist-- and then he felt the sweet internal shudder of her muscles for a few long seconds before he was being shoved away, both of them were, Tosh's shaking hands pushing away hard.

Owen grinned helplessly as he drew back, licking his fingers: Tosh's hasty post-orgasmic shove was becoming brilliantly familiar.

Gwen was sitting up between Tosh's legs, her hair in disarray, wiping her shiny swollen mouth on the back of her hand. Owen looked over her shoulder and saw that Jack had moved on to sucking Rhys off, kneeling between his feet, gripping Rhys's bare hips with both hands.

Rhys was staring dizzily at Tosh's sprawled, sated body, one of his hands carding restlessly through Jack's hair. As Owen watched, Rhys's gaze slid down to take in Jack swallowing his dick, and his soft expression turned disbelieving, as if coming out of a trance - as if he hadn't noticed Jack starting up down there. In two experimental nudges of Rhys's hips, the disbelief turned the tiniest bit mean, and Owen heard Jack moan, saw him readjust his stance on the floor, getting a firmer grip on Rhys's hipbones.

"That's hot," Gwen said quietly, and Owen blinked back at her; she was rummaging through the pockets of his discarded jacket, her hands moving with practised swiftness.

Owen cleared his throat. "What, her? Or them?" he asked, his voice rough, nodding first at Tosh and then at Rhys. His mouth was dry, and he could hear his heart thumping.

"Both," Gwen said, smiling triumphantly and ripping opening a condom packet, and the thumping in Owen's head went triple-speed. "C'mere." She rolled on top of him before he could respond, scrabbling at his jeans and boxers to let his cock spring out, pushing him hard down onto his back and sliding on the condom even as she straddled his hips.

God help him, he could never resist a presumptuous naked woman.

But still--

"Gwen," Owen muttered, looking urgently between her and Rhys, "_fuck off_, this can't," but Gwen was holding his sheathed dick in one hand and bracing against his chest with the other, and _leaning_. "Fuck," Owen repeated, as she lowered herself onto the head of his cock, tight and hot and oh fuck, fuck, _Gwen_.

"Shh," Gwen muttered, wriggling her hips to accommodate him and then impaling herself completely, and Owen started to lose it, pushing helplessly up inside her. He couldn't help going with it, his hands finding her rounded arse, tilting it and holding it at that angle that always made them both pant and swear--

"Oh, yeah," Gwen gasped, grinding down on him, tight and practised, and he'd always loved how she moved, lean and greedy, taking the full length of his cock to smack her arse against his hips. Riding him hard. It was impossibly familiar, making his balls tighten and his mouth work around silent groans-- and yet it was different, too, the rhythm changeable, sometimes hard and deep, sometimes stuttering and shallow.

It made Owen's head spin like a good but inadvisable dream, his hands sliding down her thighs, reminded badly of how he loved her like this: black hair jolting around her bare shoulders as he hammered up into her, creamy breasts bouncing with every thrust. Her mouth looked red and kissable, and he hungered for her to bend down over him, hard nipples pressing into his chest, fullness and softness behind-- but she wasn't even looking at him.

Dazedly, Owen followed her gaze - to where Jack was on his knees while Rhys fucked his mouth - and oh shit, he realised: that changeable rhythm was Rhys's. She was matching him, thrust for thrust.

Gwen was using him like a bloody _dildo_.

Owen opened his mouth in outrage, and Gwen slipped her fingers between his lips and shuddered down, tilting her head back but still watching avidly, panting wildly and clenching at his cock and--

"Oh, oh, oh _yeah_," Gwen moaned, throaty and heartfelt, curling her fingers against Owen's tongue.

Rhys had come.

But Owen had _not_ come, Owen noted frantically, even as Gwen slowed to a maddening pulse and then collapsed over him, a panting and sweaty heap of curves and soft hair and heavy, boneless limbs.

"Don't you dare stop," Owen said, muffled by her hair falling in his face as she pushed up on her hands. His cock was protesting, still buried inside her but apparently forgotten. He needed her to _move_.

"Mm," she mumbled vaguely, and gave him a damp peck on the cheek, and then she was crawling off him, leaving his cock sticking straight up, aching and hot.

"Damnit, Gwen," Owen gasped, all that sensation ebbing rapidly away. He rolled on his side to watch haplessly as she crawled over to Rhys, who was also slumped and panting, leaning against the pool table, while Jack got unsteadily to his feet. Jack's chest was heaving as he got his breath back, like he'd been running a marathon, not just giving head. He took a swig of purple wine and winked at himself in the mirror.

Gwen hadn't looked back. As Owen watched, she collapsed - more completely this time - into Rhys's arms.

Owen resisted the urge to punch the floorboards in frustration, abandoned to deal with the hot stiffness of his cock alone. He stripped off the condom and stuffed his erection unceremoniously back into his jeans, mind raging. She'd-- and in front of _Rhys_\--! He _really_ couldn't believe that had just happened. Even under the influence of a powerful aphrodisiac, he'd never conceived of any possible encounter in which Rhys would stand by appreciatively while Gwen got off on Owen.

There again, he'd never taken into account the combined effects of a powerful aphrodisiac and Captain Jack Harkness.

Jack was now leaning against the pool table, absently massaging his jaw and grinning to himself. At his feet, Gwen and Rhys were exploring each other in a happy, sprawling heap of endorphins. Jack was shirtless; still wearing his trousers, but with his braces hanging around his thighs, delineating his flanks, strong and smooth. Owen swallowed. The expanse of his skin was... distracting.

To be honest, Owen probably owed him one. Given that he'd been the man with the vision, and everything. Owen got up and limped over to join him, feeling like his centre of gravity had shifted conspicuously downwards.

"Thanks," he said, trying to look worldly, ignoring Gwen's purring and the sound of kisses drifting up from beneath the table.

Jack gave him a disbelieving look. "Thanks? Don't mention it! I've been wanting to do that to him for _weeks_."

Owen eyed him doubtfully. "You have?"

Jack nodded.

"Huh," Owen said. Trust Jack to be just that fucked up. Still... He tilted his head. "Have you been wanting to do that to _me_ for weeks?" he asked hopefully.

Jack smirked and touched Owen on the chest. "Nah," he said - impolitely, in Owen's opinion. Far too casual.

"Oh," Owen said, trying not to sound crestfallen. But really, he could have at least considered it. What did it say about Owen, that Jack was happy to suck everyone _else's_ cock, just not his? Maybe it was time he did some work on those interpersonal skills people kept going on about.

And then Jack grinned and pushed Owen round so his arse hit the pool table. "More like years," Jack explained, dropping easily back to his knees.

"Oh," Owen said stupidly, as his cock jumped in his boxers, painfully hard even before Jack touched him. He grabbed the wooden edge of the pool table with both hands. He hadn't-- In spite of everything, he hadn't actually really genuinely expected-- "Good?"

"Yeah," Jack said, nuzzling Owen's hip as he worked at the button on his jeans. Owen stared, with a sudden sickening suspicion that he might hyperventilate. Jack's bare shoulders. Jack's hands busy at his fly. Jack's mouth, dropping casual kisses along the line of his waistband, that teasing proximity making him harder than ever.

Owen tried to control his breathing - now was _not_ the time for hypocapnia - and counted, slowly and ruthlessly, to ten. He was so hard he would probably have _paid_ to have someone service his cock right now, but there was no getting away from the fact that this was Jack, his boss, Jack Fucking Harkness. By the time he reached six, Jack had Owen's cock in both hands and was starting to lick it, broad strokes of his tongue that made Owen's toes curl.

Owen abandoned his counting, and his breathing sped up again helplessly as the sensations started to build. He stared dazedly down at Jack, familiarly handsome and utterly confident, and Jack was-- okay, yeah. Jack knew what he was doing. He was thoroughly exploring the shape of Owen's cock with his mouth, apparently enjoying it no end.

As much as he'd enjoyed Rhys's? Owen wondered faintly, tightening his grip on the edge of the pool table.

Or - Ianto's?

A shiver went over him at that thought.

He watched the wet redness of Jack's mouth, a little swollen - no wonder - lapping him, hot and soft, licking experimentally up the underside of his cock and then taking him half inside and sucking strongly. All that practise had definitely, Owen thought, stood him in good stead. He was about to start moaning in pathetically earnest gratitude when he felt Ianto lean on the pool table next to him.

Despite the wine and the sugar and the damn good blowjob, Owen went tense all over.

Ianto was fully dressed again, having gone and got the beers in, though he still had those three small buttons undone. And... crap. Leaning here with his jeans and boxers round his ankles and his dick in Jack's mouth, Owen suddenly had a sinking feeling. He looked at Ianto cautiously, through half-closed eyes, because even now, all of them up in the sky like this, he wasn't _blind_. Jack and Ianto, they were-- Well, put it this way, Ianto would probably feel kind of weird about--

"Pull his hair," Ianto advised, tipping his beer bottle against his mouth. "He likes that."

Owen closed his eyes as a surge of heat went through him, then did as Ianto said, closing his hands in Jack's hair and tugging him deeper onto his cock. Jack made an _incredibly_ hot noise, muffled, almost a gasp, almost a growl. The resultant bolt of sensation almost fried Owen's spine.

"Yeah," Ianto said, leaning his shoulder against Owen's shoulder, watching approvingly as Jack's cheeks hollowed, as his lips moved slick and eager over Owen's cock. "But you can go harder than that, he won't break." He smiled privately. "Believe me, I know."

Owen couldn't speak. He could barely breathe. He pressed his shoulder hard against Ianto's and tried not to overbalance, or, say, melt completely into the pool table. As if Jack going down on him wasn't hot enough on its own, _without_ Ianto watching and providing commentary.

"It's a pity we don't have a bed," Ianto said, thoughtfully. "We could both... No." He broke off and took another sip of beer, smirking against the mouth of the bottle.

"Both?" Owen managed, as Jack took him in slowly right to the base.

Ianto leaned in and put his lips against Owen's ear, making him shiver anew. "We could both fuck him," he said, extremely quietly, "I reckon," dropping a kiss against the curve of Owen's ear, "at the same time."

Jack sucked hard and then sat back on his heels. "I heard that," he protested, lips brushing against the crown of Owen's cock. Then he started sucking again, just the tip, slipping against his tongue.

Ianto grinned as Owen gasped. "And?"

Jack shrugged expansively, then pulled off again as Owen shivered uncontrollably, hot and cold, lust and sensation. "You'd never manage it."

"You're not saying you wouldn't be up for it," Ianto said.

"Sure," Jack said, and grinned knowingly, "but with me in the middle you guys could never decide who'd be on top."

"Him," Owen and Ianto said simultaneously, then laughed.

"Yeah, you're right, I would be," Ianto told Owen, turning his face to look at him. His eyes were dark and gleaming. "You're imagining it, aren't you," he said, the volume dropping, a rough knowing pleasure entering his voice.

Owen didn't have room in his head to imagine anything of the sort. Ianto's gaze flicked up and down Owen's face, assessing, and Owen frowned against the twisting warmth that was taking over his body in response to Jack's clever mouth building up its rhythm again.

"You, on your back," Ianto said, his voice hypnotic, and now, now Owen was imagining it, imagining every damn word. "With Jack kneeling over you-- No, lying on top of you. With your dick up Jack's arse, your chests sliding against each other, his face buried in your neck."

Owen got the feeling that Ianto knew _exactly_ what he was talking about. "Uh huh," he said.

"His weight on you, pinning you down," Ianto said, his mouth close to Owen's ear again, "his legs spread wide. And he'd be fucking himself on you, with me watching, and I _would not_ be able to resist."

The clink of Ianto's beer bottle being set down on the edge of the pool table had a cool clarity. Owen realised Jack was sucking him quieter, steadier - relentless, but like he could keep going for hours. He was attuned to Ianto, Owen realised; to Ianto's every fucking word.

God, what were they _like_?

"So I'd crawl on top," Ianto said, "and you'd feel my dick sliding against your balls." Ianto was reaching down as he spoke, his fingertips brushing Owen's hands on Jack's head, drifting down, finding the base of Owen's cock and circling there.

Owen's eyes squeezed shut. Compared with the slick silkiness of Jack's mouth, Ianto's fingertips _rasped_. "Go on."

"Oh, you can imagine the rest," Ianto said, and Jack made an indignant noise around Owen's cock and Owen's eyes flew open. Ianto was smiling wickedly, closed-mouthed.

Owen exhaled shakily. "C'mon," he said faintly, and Jack made an encouraging noise that made Owen's head spin. Owen tried to make his voice threatening. "Ianto, I swear to God, I'll--" but threats wouldn't work on Ianto, so he changed tack, "I'll, anything! I'll clean the coffee machine, I'll do your paperwork for a week-- just _tell me what happens_."

Ianto hummed, then shrugged and said casually, "Well, obviously, the merest touch of my dick would have you both in such ecstasy, you'd come right there and then in a most disappointing manner."

"Ianto," Owen whined, even as Jack drew back from Owen's cock again and scowled up at them.

Jack's voice took no prisoners. "_Ianto_," he said.

Ianto's gaze on Jack was an insane mix - possessive, proud, something completely opaque - and then he looked back at Owen, and licked his lips. His eyes were still gleaming, half-closed now. "You'd both go completely still," he said slowly, "except you'd be panting, and Jack would be rocking on you, because he can't keep still when he's being fucked, not for anything."

"Uh huh," Owen said, trying not to breathe loudly and obscure the low words. Jack was rocking his tongue against the ridge under his cockhead, making his balls ache.

"And you'd pull half out, because you couldn't resist rubbing against me," Ianto said, beginning to move his fingers again. Across the place where Owen's cock disappeared between Jack's lips. Pushing into Jack's mouth alongside Owen's dick. Then, sliding down.

"You wouldn't know what you wanted more," Ianto said, his fingertips lingering slickly over Owen's balls and then easing under them, slipping down between his legs, "if you wanted to feel our dicks rubbing together-- or if you wanted me to fuck _you_."

Owen gritted his teeth, shifting his legs apart against the pool of cotton and denim confining his ankles. Ianto pressed against his side, pushing his cock against Owen's hip, the fabric of his black trousers scratching Owen's bare skin. His fingers were wet from Jack's mouth as he nudged his fingertips suggestively against Owen's arse.

"And I'd be tempted to," Ianto said, "I'd want to - but there's really no choice. I'd have to fuck Jack, or I'd never hear the end of it. I'm only after a quiet life, you know," he added dryly, and Owen started laughing and then gasped as Ianto pushed one fingertip into his body.

"Oh, _fuck_," Owen managed.

"So I'd push my cock into Jack's arse, next to yours," Ianto said conversationally, as Jack started sucking furiously and Owen squirmed between Jack's mouth and Ianto's finger. "_Tight_, so tight, and it'd be slow-going at first, but we wouldn't give him long to get used to it, because that's no fun. We'd want to hear him groan. And you'd barely be able to move under the weight of us both, you'd have to leave all the fucking to me--"

"Jesus," Owen gasped, almost _feeling_ it, Ianto's cock, hot, pushing over him.

"But I'd give it to him hard, I know how he likes it," Ianto said, getting breathless against Owen's ear as Owen reached one hand blindly towards him, groping for Ianto's cock, "and he'd be sucking your neck, panting, and you'd just be able to feel my dick, moving alongside yours--"

Owen found the shape of Ianto's cock in his trousers and the timbre of Ianto's voice changed, growing harsher as Owen squeezed him. "And in the end," Ianto gasped, pressing against Owen's grasp, "you wouldn't know if it was the _thought_ of us both fucking him, or the _feeling_ of Jack shoving back on us, or just the _sensation_," Ianto rasped, "of my dick sliding against yours," forcing another finger into Owen's body and giving them a slow deep _twist_, causing a series of explosions to rock through Owen's world, "that made you come."

Owen groaned as he thrust helplessly into Jack's mouth, coming like it had been weeks, not less than an hour.

"Fuck, _fuck_," he gasped, rocking on Ianto's fingers and losing himself in the wetness of Jack's mouth, squeezing at Ianto's dick with one hand and screwing his other hand tight in Jack's hair.

Ianto kissed his cheek, then the side of his neck, easing his fingers out again and calmingly stroking Owen's hip. He was still dressed; how the _fuck_ was he still dressed?

"Fuck," Owen breathed, as the lights popping in his vision diminished. His fists were trembling as he loosened their grip. He felt wrung out, felt like his legs might give way at any minute.

Jack stood up and kissed him deeply, his mouth salty, one hand folding around the back of Owen's neck.

"Fuck," Owen said again, against Jack's lips, as his knees turned loose and rubbery. He let Ianto prop him against the pool table, draw his jeans back up, and press a cold glass bottle into his boneless fingers. Jack drew back from kissing Owen and met Ianto's gaze, and Owen understood distantly that that? Had been foreplay.

"You," Jack said to Ianto, darkly, and Ianto tilted his head, his eyes flashing sly.

"Inspired?"

"Always," Jack said, reaching for him, and Owen watched them kiss, hard and panting. It was as if they were trying to get _through_ each other, Jack's bare chest shoving against Ianto's shirt, Ianto's hand stroking possessively down Jack's back.

"Good," Ianto muttered, fiddling with Jack's trousers, and then he was turning Jack around and arranging him against the pool table, pushing his trousers down and jostling in close.

Owen watched Jack's face as Ianto slid into him, watched his expression close down. Shutting out the rest of the world.

"Fuck," Gwen gasped, and Owen jerked round dizzily and saw she was on her back by the fireplace, Rhys on top of her, her arms coiled around his bare shoulders. Their foreheads were pressed together and he was grinning down as his hips flexed, teasing out her mumbling stream of whispered invectives.

Tosh was sprawled practically in their laps, her chest rising and falling as if deeply, sweetly asleep. Owen's breath caught as he _felt_ a squirt of chemicals across his brain, just at the sight of her, like a shot of espresso after a thirty-hour shift. A warm wave passed through him and he blinked hard, the room shifting and swaying in his peripheral vision.

For a moment, he wasn't sure his wobbly legs would carry him; and then he was next to her, sinking to his knees with extreme care, setting down the beer Ianto had given him and keeping one hand on it. Tosh's hair was swirled around her head in a glossy black mess, and her lips were parted. She was so damn _beautiful_.

Owen swallowed. "Thirsty?"

Tosh pressed her lips together, frowning slightly. "Hmm?" she said, and she _had_ been asleep, he realised-- wow, they'd actually worn her out. He felt a hot stab of pride, and then her eyes opened and his feelings became a lot less simple.

Wordlessly, he tilted the beer bottle in her direction.

Tosh's gaze followed the movement.

"Oh... yeah, thanks" she said, after a moment, pushing up unsteadily on her elbows, and Owen held the beer for her to drink from, watching her wet lips nuzzle the mouth of the bottle, remembering the kisses she'd given him, the truly excellent blow-job. His cock was hard and needy again and yeah, okay, that was ridiculous. That had to be the wine. Not that he was complaining.

Slowly, concentrating hard on moving without towering over her or, say, seeming too presumptuous - though God knew that seemed to work for people tonight - he sprawled down next to her and fitted his mouth to her ear.

"You look pretty sleepy," he said. He was in charge of his body. He was absolutely going to leave her to sleep if she gave him the slightest sign that--

One of Tosh's hands found the front of his jeans. "You'd better not have woken me up under false pretences, Harper." Her knuckles rubbed over the bulge of his hard-on, and she smiled. "Lucky for you, it looks like you can deliver."

***

They got warning that the bar was closing because Jack's wrist strap went bonkers.

Owen ignored it. Tosh's legs were wrapped around his waist, urging him with her bare heels to thrust more powerfully, hands in Owen's hair as he buried himself inside her, braced against the wall, holding her up with both hands.

She'd come already - if the now-recognisable gasped curses were any indication - but Owen was holding out to get her off again, trying to angle his cock and hips to slide against whatever it was that made her twitch and moan _just like that_. There, _that_. He bit his lip and tried to do it again, whatever it was; sometimes an excellent knowledge of anatomy was of absolutely no use at all.

"Come on," Jack called, over the blurting of the wrist strap, and Owen ignored him, feeling his own orgasm coalescing in the middle distance. Tosh was panting hotly into his ear, her hands roving over him, her fingernails scoring bright lines of sensation over his shoulderblades, the back of his neck, his scalp.

"Come _on_," Jack growled, suddenly a lot closer, and then Owen felt an _actual hand on his actual bare shoulder_, heavy and uncompromising.

"Jack," Owen protested, stuttering to a halt and gasping at the injustice of it, the totally out-of-character Harkness cruelty. "You absolute fucker."

"Needs must, sweetheart," Jack said cheerfully, and Owen moaned in frustration, then in outrage as Jack patted him, all self-righteous benevolence.

"Damnit," Owen muttered, and lowered Tosh regretfully to the floor, his cock slipping out and slapping up against his stomach, waving the condom like a dismal flag. He scrunched it up in his hand, scowling, then realised Tosh was smiling hazily.

"Later," she suggested, with the gracious calm of someone who's come about sixteen times in one evening, and Owen grudgingly brightened. He must have done something right, even if it would take plenty of practice to work out exactly what. That wasn't a completely horrible thought.

Jack's wrist strap was bleeping in agitation, louder now.

"He uses it as an alarm clock," Ianto said disparagingly, and Owen had a sudden image of them waking up together, bare shoulders and bitchy Ianto and morning coffee - a pocket of time before the danger of the day ahead. His frustrated, rose-tinted brain tried to hate them for it, and failed.

"We'd better get out of here," Jack said, finally getting the wrist strap to shut up, and frowned at the room. "Has anyone seen my clothes?"

***

Standing outside in the damp Cardiff night, waiting for an oversized taxi and unable to stop grinning at each other, Owen found himself saying, "You know, my place is closest, we could take the party home..."

He mostly wanted to finish off what he and Tosh had just started, but the wine was still heavy in his bag, and the whole night didn't have to be over yet. He had a vague, insistent desire to make sexual amends to Rhys, somehow. And to see if Ianto and Jack wanted to make good on those suggestions, earlier. And to watch Gwen and Tosh wrestle.

"Sounds good," Tosh said, and Ianto nodded with a predatory smile, and Gwen and Rhys exchanged a smouldering glance and said, "Why not?"

"No," Jack said, and Owen looked at him in amazement. Jack laughed. "Don't get me wrong, I would love to. I bet we would all love to. But I also think we'll need some space tomorrow morning."

"Got the morning off then, have we?" Gwen asked hopefully, in the surprised silence that followed.

Jack laughed again. "No - but I don't expect to see any of you before ten, how's that?" he suggested, and Owen, who still sort of resentfully wanted to kiss Jack's collarbone, agreed it sounded fair.

***

His flat was quiet and dark, and he missed the others immediately, and wound up combing the depths of his harddrive to dig up some truly dreadful gay porn. One last orgasm before sleep, his own hand familiar and adept, the porn playing in the background whilst his brain attempted to sort its memories into some sort of coherence.

He came, thinking about Tosh kissing Gwen whilst Rhys fucked Jack, Ianto holding Owen against a wall by his wrists; and then he relaxed.

***

Owen woke up with a stinking hangover, aching all over. His lips were chapped and his mouth felt gritty, parched. Something had gone weird with his vision, giving everything pale purple edges. His alarm was set to 8am, though, so he dragged himself to the bathroom for a nasty-tasting pint of the painkilling rehydration cocktail he kept for mornings like this, then crawled back into bed and slept until ten.

Arriving at the Hub, he still felt like he'd been hit by a truck, but at least his head had stopped hurting.

Ianto, of course, looked implacably fresh as a daisy, and met Owen's eyes steadily when he walked in. "Bit of a fuss," he mouthed, with a nod towards the main area, where Tosh was standing with her arms folded, Gwen was pointing a finger at Jack, and Jack had his hands planted on his hips and was looking decidedly dark around the eyes.

"The fact is," Gwen was saying loudly, her finger quivering, "the answer to every problem is not memory loss, Jack!"

Jack laughed shortly. "Maybe not every problem, but this problem?" He swept a hand out, describing the whole group. "I think it is!"

"Bollocks it is," Gwen snapped. "You're just--"

"I'm not just anything," Jack interrupted loudly. "It was a regrettable incident, it's no one's fault except Owen's, and--"

"Hey," Owen put in quickly, "it's Ianto's fault as much as mine."

"Guilty as charged," Ianto said promptly, perfectly straight-faced. "Buying that well-known intoxicant, _jelly babies_ \- I should've known better."

Gwen transferred her stare to Ianto, then suddenly smirked, breaking the tension, and Owen had a strong memory flash of Ianto kissing him, hard and urgent, chased by a memory of the soft weight of Gwen's body on top of him. He looked quickly back at Jack.

Jack was scowling.

"Okay," Jack said, as Owen tried desperately _not_ to remember the welcoming heat of Jack's mouth, "whatever, but those memories-- it'll mess us up as a team. You twentieth-century humans aren't built for--"

"_Don't_ you start on how quaint we are again," Gwen said shortly, the smile vanishing.

"I'm not saying quaint!" Jack said. "I'm saying, it was out of character and that's fine - we were under the influence of, of a _cocktail_ of alien substances, engaging in _compulsive_ behaviour--"

"Not actually compulsive," Owen chipped in quickly, since Jack was clearly in the mood to hand out the blame. "Just our inhibitions gone out the window."

"_Either way_," Jack growled, glaring at him, "the reasonable course of action, not to mention the most professional, would be to forget it ever happened."

Owen winced, conceding the point. "There is that."

Tosh was staring at her desk. "I can't really concentrate," she admitted, into the silence.

Jack gave Gwen a triumphant look. "Ianto?"

Ianto shrugged. "I wouldn't say I'd object if the events in question were never mentioned again."

"Right," Jack said, smugly. "Majority says--"

Gwen shook her head, smiling again. "That's all very well and good, but I watched you suck off my fiancé, Jack. I want to remember that as long as I live."

Out of the corner of his eye, Owen saw Ianto turn away, his hand going to his mouth - a classic Ianto-hiding-grin gesture that Owen immediately thought he shouldn't be so familiar with.

"Well maybe we can't always get what we want," Jack snapped loudly.

Gwen's eyes flashed. "Unless you want something, and _then_ the rules change. Face it, Jack," she added, raising her voice over Jack's retort, "You want us to forget because you can't stand us knowing anything personal about you, let alone your precious _technique_."

"_You don't know how wrong you are_," Jack had been retorting, then broke off in outrage as her words rang out derisively-- and Owen saw his chance and stepped quickly in between them, putting up his hands.

"Look," Owen said, looking askance at Gwen, then Jack, "how about I tailor up a pill that will just knock out the last twelve hours?"

"But," Gwen said, and then glared as Jack shushed her.

"Six plain white pills," Owen continued, "no identifying marks. I'll put them in a bowl in my lab, along with another bowl of six sugar tablets. Everyone has to come and get a choice of which to take. No one will know, we'll never mention it again."

"You could tell how many took it by looking at which bowl has some left in," Jack said, and Owen rolled his eyes.

"Fine, everyone puts the choice they didn't take in a separate container, so we'll have six identical pills at the end, which I will then dispose of."

Gwen raised an eyebrow at Jack. "That sounds convoluted enough to satisfy even you," she said, and Jack glared at her, then relented and gave Owen an impatient wave.

"Fine," Jack said. "Fine. Any other business?"

"Just me," Ianto said, raising a finger. "I need to requisition the car this afternoon, and I want free rein with the expenses account. There is," he added darkly, "a monumental amount of dry-cleaning to be done."

 

***

 

Owen took the sugar pill. He went through the motions of debating it, but really, apart from how distasteful he generally found the practice of memory erasure, it was important that someone remembered not to mix the alien space wine with penny mix without knowing exactly what sort of consequences to expect.

He scrawled "rejects" on a glass beaker and put his retcon pill in it, then went home, waving to Jack as he left the hub to indicate that the lab was available for the others whenever they were ready.

He admitted that it was a little bit to do with Tosh, too. She wouldn't take the placebo, he thought - she'd been so pink and distracted today, he suspected she'd barely got any work done, and who was Tosh if not all work and no play? - but it had been _good_, really good, and Owen didn't want that to only live on in Gwen's mind.

Gwen and Rhys would take the placebo. Unless they had some scary almost-married freak-out squabble and _made_ each other take the retcon, he supposed. Ianto could go either way - he probably scared himself, all that straight lacing coming undone - but he was also enough of an information sponge to recognise the power of so much insight into their deep desires. Plus it would keep him in bitchy asides for _months_.

While Jack... Jack was a tricky one.

Ordinarily, Owen thought, Jack would take the placebo. He was no prude and anyway, he didn't like anyone to know more than he did. After this morning, though, he'd probably take the retcon as a point of pride and principle - he was nothing if not stubborn. He was also possibly just twisted enough to enjoy the idea of himself in blissful ignorance while the rest of them cringed and blushed and put their foot in it a dozen times a day.

***

The next morning Owen found a briefing on his desk, which explained that a slow-acting gas leak had been detected in the building, and any confusion, subsequent misunderstanding, or strange hallucinatory memories ought to be chalked up to that.

_Cunning_, Owen thought, keeping his face straight.

Ianto chose to interpret _misunderstandings_ as an excuse to make Owen's coffee several shades too strong; within minutes Owen was buzzing and extremely warm inside, overly aware whenever anyone walked behind him.

As revenge, he made a show of checking the whole team's vital signs for gas-induced trauma, unable to resist scrutinising them for indications of discomfort or recognition as he hovered casually too close, lingered over their pulses, and made sure the stethoscope was cold.

Nothing, not a flicker. No sign that any of them remembered anything. Gwen was irritable with him, Ianto unflappable, Jack flirtatious. Tosh seemed nervous, which was worst of all.

By lunchtime, Owen was beginning to wonder if there _had_ been a gas leak - if his swirling pornographic memories had in fact been the hallucination of his poor, frustrated, hypoxic brain.

He shut himself in his lab, but his computer terminal unfortunately still worked. He got an email from Tosh saying, "That game of pool I mentioned - we never got round to it. Maybe we could have a drink tonight, just the two of us, and scout out a few potential venues," and he stared at the screen for _five minutes_, all the tired old reasons that something with Tosh was a bad idea dancing around his brain.

He would love to go for a drink with her, he thought glumly. It would probably make him the happiest he'd felt all year. But the idea of sitting there, making godawful small talk, while she chattered obliviously and he visualised in horrendous detail the feel of her legs around his waist, her breasts under his hands, his cock moving inside her, her delicious _cries_\-- it would be torture. And, patently unethical.

He sighed and rubbed his hand over his face, then looked around irritably and saw the beaker of reject pills, frustratingly indistinguishable. He still had to get rid of them. For a moment, he contemplated disposal by ingestion - the retcon pill allocated to him was in there, that much he was sure of. Then he'd be able to read Tosh's email again with a fresh, innocent mind, and make the decision based on logic rather than lustful recollection of things she couldn't remember... No, though. He couldn't be sure of how many retcon pills were in there; accidentally losing the last _week's_ memories was not an attractive prospect.

Owen sighed, looking into the bowl. Probably the best way to take care of them was with a good old mortar and pestle, crushing them to dust and then washing the dust away. Couldn't risk just chucking them - they were insoluble under standard conditions, and the minuscule chance they'd fall into the wrong hands was nevertheless not a risk worth taking.

A thought came insidious into his head: _sugar_ pills weren't insoluble.

He thought about it for a moment, then poured boiling water into the beaker. He could add concentrated nitric acid next, and the retcon pills would dissolve, but the sugar pills, they would disassociate in boiling water alone.

He snorted as he gave the beaker a quick stir, shaking his head despairingly and yet still avidly watching. It wasn't going to tell him anything, he knew that. Only if _none_ of them had taken the retcon - otherwise he'd only know the proportion of the group that still had their memories, which was hardly critically useful, for all Jack's paranoia. It wouldn't tell him who'd done what.

He stirred a little more vigorously, watching the pills swirl in the whirling water. He looked away and rubbed his hand over his jaw. What if he was the _only_ one with the memories? What then? It was going to drive him mad, it was going to mess his head up every time he saw them. _Fuck_, he thought, staring at Tosh's email still blinking on his screen. _Fuck and blast and bloody hell_.

When he looked back at the beaker, it took him a moment to realise that all six white pills were sat serenely at the bottom, the water silent and steaming. Six. None of them sugar.

"Huh," Owen said.

He walked back to his computer terminal and hit reply. _I'll pick you up at eight_, he wrote, and pressed send.

Then he added thirty centilitres of nitric acid to the beaker, watched the solution fizz furiously as the pills dissolved all at once, and smiled.


End file.
